Methodology Note

Estimates of average farm income in Scotland come from the Farm
Business Survey (
FBS, previously
known as the Farm Accounts Survey (
FAS)) for Scotland,
which is based on a sample of 500 farms. The
FBS sample is
stratified by farm type, and size.

The survey does not currently include farms predominantly
engaged in horticulture, poultry or pig production. The coverage of
the survey is restricted to those farms which have considerable
economic activity (at least 25,000 Euros of output) and are not
considered as part-time farms (have a Standard Labour Requirement (
SLR) of
more than 0.5). Therefore, some survey findings may not necessarily
apply to the whole of the agriculture industry.

Farm typology has been amended since 2014 and farms are now
classified by standard outputs (
SOs) rather than
standard gross margins (
SGMs). The
2015-16 data has been calculated using 2010
SO coefficients.

Time series in this report are presented in 2015-16 prices,
unless stated otherwise. In line with methodologies throughout the
UK and standard
methodologies within the European Commission (
EC) this is now done
using the Office for National Statistics (
ONS)
GDP deflator
(implicit price deflator for gross domestic product).